


illuminated in scars, a face aligned

by syncoping



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Character Development, Character Study, Earthborn (Mass Effect), F/M, Friendship, Guilt, Loyalty, Mentor/Protégé, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Renegade Shepard (Mass Effect), Renegon (Mass Effect), Ruthless (Mass Effect), Sexual Tension, also featuring shep's am-i-a-zombie-now existential crisis, and of course her why-does-my-whole-crew-think-im-their-therapist exasperation, her do-i-want-to-fuck-my-spiky-bird-alien-bestfriend dilemma, renegon shep is a bad influence and she knows it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:54:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 13,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26006803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syncoping/pseuds/syncoping
Summary: An eye for an eye? Fuck that. She'll give Garrus Sidonis' head on a platter, if he wants it. A life for half Garrus' face, for the shadows in his eyes, for the way his voice cracks when he talks about Omega. That sounds like a fair deal to Shepard.-(Before and after Sidonis' death, the Butcher considers the Archangel.)
Relationships: Female Shepard/Garrus Vakarian
Comments: 30
Kudos: 64





	1. i.

_i. now_

**citadel wards**

Of course, she lets him take the shot. Of course, the shot is perfect. Sidonis’ head bursts in a spray of blood, spattering hot against Shepard’s cheek. His body topples to the ground.

Around her, the plaza flurries into motion as people find somewhere else to be. There’s a bit of screaming, but for the most part the evacuation is surprisingly orderly. The doors of the Orbital Lounge swing shut. Apartment windows close. Metal sheets come down over the entrances to pawn shops, sex shops, grimy bars. This is a truly unpleasant part of the Wards, Garrus has told her, the sort of place C-Sec ignores, the sort of place you can shoot a man in the head and not worry too much about the consequences.

Gleaming under neon lights, it doesn’t look all that bad to Shepard. Probably says more about her than the area, though. At her feet, Sidonis’ body has stopped twitching. A blue pool is spreading out over the floor around it. The sight and smell of it take her back to Omega, to cradling Garrus in her arms in the wreckage of his base, his face a dark ruin, guttural sounds rising from his throat.

That’s called _irony_ , if she’s not mistaken.

She thumbs the blood off her face, absently. Turns and squints upwards. Garrus is well-hidden above her; she doesn’t see so much as a flash of blue armour, a glint of artificial light off his gun. She knows him well enough that she can picture him anyway: crouched in the shadows, visor flickering, collapsing the barrel of his rifle before moving to stand.

Shepard rolls her bad shoulder back, exhales a long breath. God, does she know him.


	2. ii.i

_ii. before_

**omega, kima district**

Omega gives him back to her wrong. Here’s Archangel, removing his helmet with shaky hands, revealed as none other than her old friend, her unlikely protégé. Shepard stares, incredulous, but stranger things have happened to her in the last few weeks, and anyway a lot of information is starting to make sense. Archangel is a crack shot _and_ some kind of tech expert _and_ an excellent tactician _and_ has all kinds of mildly deranged ideas about crime and punishment and justice. How many bastards in the galaxy can do all that at the same time? Only one comes to mind, and he’s in front of her now, trembling with fatigue, leaning heavy on his gun, saying, “Shepard. Thought you were dead.”

“ _Garrus_! What are you doing here?” She steps forward, unthinking. Behind her, Mordin and Zaeed exchange glances.

“Just keeping my skills sharp.” Dry as ever, but there’s a rough, raw edge to his voice. “A little target practice.”

“You okay?” she asks, which is impressively indelicate, even for her.

“Been better.” His pupils are blown, the blue of his eyes shrunk to thin rings. Stims, she realises. Fair enough: he’s been holding out here alone for more than forty-eight hours. You do what you have to; hell, she’d been up to her eyeballs in red sand back on Torfan, keeping her biotics spiking. “But it sure is good to see a friendly face.”

“What are you doing out here on Omega?” she demands. There’s a crackle of gunfire from outside. Garrus doesn’t even look around.

“I got tired of all the bureaucratic crap on the Citadel. Figured I could do more good on my own.” He doesn’t meet her eyes. “At least it’s not hard to find criminals here. All I have to do is point my gun and shoot.”

The shock of seeing him has worn off enough, by now, that Shepard is starting to think: _two years. How many things can happen to a person in two years?_

She says, “You nailed me good a couple times, by the way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lots of canon dialogue in this story, i think most of it should be accurate!


	3. ii.ii

**_normandy_ sr-2, medbay**

“His right aural membrane was badly damaged,” Dr Chakwas is saying, scrolling through medical notes on a datapad. “We replaced it with a prosthetic, but his hearing on his right side will be poor. Most of his right mandible could be salvaged, but not the joint. That’s cybernetic. Movement should be mostly preserved, once the pain lessens, so his speech shouldn’t be affected.”

“Uh,” Shepard says. She’s only half-listening. Turian bodies are powerful, elegant, impressive things, right up until they’re lying very still, covered in dressings and bandages, attached by wires and tubes to medical machines. Then the long sinewy limbs look spindly, the narrow waist fragile. Also, everything in the medbay, like everything on the SR-2, is sized to human specifications, not standard galactic ones. Garrus is too tall for the bed. Chakwas has bent his legs so his feet don’t hang off.

“As for the synthetic plate and hide grafts – well.” Chakwas sets the datapad down. “He’ll have major scarring, that’s unavoidable.”

Prosthetics, cybernetics, scars. Shepard’s face itches; only the thought of a lecture from Chakwas keeps her from picking at the reddish, glowing cracks on her cheeks. They’ll match, she thinks, with bitter humour.

“Nice work, doc,” she says. Her voice rings hollow. “Any idea when he’ll be up?”

Chakwas purses her lips. “He won’t be in any shape for a conversation for another twelve hours, at least. He’s sustained a head injury and lost a great deal of blood, and when he does regain consciousness he’ll need something strong for the pain. Based on what Professor Solus has told me about the circumstances, he’s been sleep-deprived, running on stimulants—”

“Right,” Shepard says, “I get it. Just . . . keep me updated.”

There’s a long moment of silence.

“It’s a stroke of luck that the professor was with you,” Chakwas says, almost gently. “If he hadn’t stabilized him – well. The outcome would have been much worse.”

“Right,” Shepard says again. Garrus is bare to his waist, silver plates glinting under the medbay’s harsh lights. His grey-brown hide looks pale.

“Commander.” Chakwas reaches out, as if to touch Shepard’s arm, then thinks better of it and drops her hand again. “You saved his life.”

Shepard glances at her. Chakwas has worked with so many marines, she supposes, that she’s more or less learned the art of reading their minds.

_If I’d gotten there sooner. If I’d stuck that welder in Cathka’s back earlier. If I’d sabotaged the gunship so it couldn’t even take off. If I’d shot Tarak in the face back when he still thought I was on his side._

_If I’d been up there to tell Garrus to stay in cover. He was always darting out from behind cover at the worst moments if he thought he could land a good hit, like his plates could stop bullets. If I’d beaten that habit out of him harder –_

“I know,” she says eventually. The _thanks_ is unspoken. She figures Chakwas can just mind-read it out of her.

“I’ll let you know if his condition changes,” Chakwas says, which Shepard knows is code for _now get out of my medbay and let me work_. She takes her cue, nods to Chakwas, goes to the door. The windows have been blanked out so curious crew members can’t see inside. She heads up to her cabin to work on her mission report.

That’s the intention, anyway. Shepard finds herself staring up at the skylight installed in the ceiling, watching the stars rush by on the other side of the Normandy’s mass effect fields, considering the ways in which things have shifted.

Since getting off that Cerberus station, her life has felt like some nightmarish parody of the one she’d known. There’s media coverage of her own memorial on the extranet. There’s a scholarship with her name attached to it for poor kids on Earth. Her beautiful ship is haunted by an omnipresent AI; her crew has been replaced by phantoms in yellow and white. Joker is thinner and older and stares at her out of the corner of his eye when he thinks she isn’t looking. Hackett’s place on the other end of her comms has been taken by that cigar-smoking bastard. And she’s floated through it all, pointing and shooting without thinking. Numb as a ghost. As a dead woman.

But now –

Now the world has snapped into focus. Two years might have done things to Garrus she doesn’t yet understand, and it’s anyone’s guess when he’ll be in fighting shape again. But none of that seems to matter in the face of the crucial fact that she’s got someone she can trust to watch her six. Someone who’s on _her_ side, not Miranda Lawson’s, not the Illusive Man’s.

Now she’s got someone to fight for.

Now she’s got something to lose.


	4. ii.iii

**zorya, blue suns base**

_Just like old times_ , Garrus says, but that’s not quite true. Oh, they fight like it is: Shepard tearing up the field in a blaze of biotics and shotgun fire, while the red laser of Garrus’ scope watches over her like—well. Like a guardian angel. That hasn’t changed. Garrus always knows what she wants him to do without her having to tell him to do it; that hasn’t changed either.

But he looks different, in ways that have nothing to do with the bandages covering the left side of his face. Garrus is broader in the shoulder, more muscular. At first she thinks he’s somehow grown taller, too, before realizing it’s just his stance that’s changed. On the SR-1 he’d tended to slouch his shoulders, duck his head, so as not to tower so dramatically over the human crew. Now he appears to have grown into his considerable height. He’s even learned the art of looming, which Shepard witnesses to her amusement when Engineer Donnelly takes it upon himself to complain that the alterations Garrus keeps making to the main gun are throwing the power grid off balance.

He’s quieter, too. Less uptight. Less mouthy. More cautious in firefights, more careful, takes fewer stupid risks. In the jungles of Zorya he hangs back, as per her orders, covering her and Zaeed from a distance, whereas she knows the Garrus of two years ago would have pushed forward as soon as he found an excuse, hungry for action. Only after every merc in sight is dead does he break cover, rejoin them.

Shepard decides to go over the plan again, mostly for Zaeed’s benefit. The old merc looks distracted, his mismatched eyes distant. She calls up the area map constructed from EDI’s orbital scans; it hovers in the air above her omnitool, rotating slowly. “Front door’s over here,” she says, pointing. “We should reach it in about fifteen minutes, unless they throw more soldiers at us. Our priority’s getting those workers out. So we take out as many Suns as possible on our way in, then escort the civilians back out through the front.”

Garrus listens to her with his head tilted, good ear towards her. Then he says, “Shepard. If we go around, there’s a side entrance that leads to the barracks. They’ve already declared an alert. I figure workers will be confined in there until the lockdown ends. If we go in that way, Iwe could get them out with less of a fight.”

That’s new, too. Old Garrus had hung onto her every word; new Garrus tells her _just_ what he thinks of her orders, flattering or not. Also, he tends to be right. He’s grown into a hell of a tactician, cunning and subtle where Shepard prefers brute force. She nods at him.

“Good point,” she says, but before she can go on, Zaeed interrupts.

“You’re assuming we want to avoid a fight,” he says darkly. “I told you, Shepard. I want Vido’s head. If I know that bastard, he’ll be waiting for us up front. I need to get at him.”

Shepard scowls. Two years ago, she would never have tolerated insubordination in the field; but two years ago, she wouldn’t be attempting to fulfill part of a mercenary’s contract to secure his loyalty to her suicide mission. As far as she can tell, Zaeed is an amoral scumbag, but he’s an amoral scumbag whose combat career is quite possibly older than Shepard. That kind of expertise is useful. Garrus shrugs at her. She says: “Fine. Front entrance, then. You get one shot, Massani, and if you miss we’re not waiting around for you to try again.”

“Trust me,” Zaeed growls, “I won’t miss.”

“Sure.” Shepard holsters her SMG, swaps it out for her shotgun. “We move in two. Get ready.”

Zaeed checks the ammo settings on his Vindicator. Garrus fiddles with his visor. Shepard’s ears are assaulted, briefly, by a blast of utterly obnoxious asari pop music sparkling through the comms. It stops almost as soon as it starts. So that hasn’t changed, either.

“What the hell was _that_ ,” says Zaeed.

“ _Vakarian_ ,” Shepard growls.

“Commander,” says Garrus, innocently.

“I told you to stop listening to music during firefights.”

“Did you? When?”

“Two years ago, you bastard.”

“ _Riiight_ ,” Garrus says. “I must have forgotten.”

“You play music while you fight?” Zaeed demands, incredulous.

Garrus says, without a hint of shame, “I like syncing my shots to the beat.”

“Goddamned crazy son of a bitch,” Zaeed mutters. Then: “Don’t suppose you’ve got any decent music loaded onto that visor? Any twentieth-century rock and roll?”

Garrus says, politely, “I have no idea what that is.”

Shepard says, loudly, “Let’s move on.”

So his music taste hasn’t improved, but he’s better shot than ever, and a better tech, too. Inside the refinery, several explosions later, she covers him with shotgun fire as he crouches over his omnitool, fingers racing.

“C’mon, Vakarian,” she says.

“One second. _There._ ” There’s a flash of blue light. Shepard jumps as the fancy flamethrower of the pyro gaining on them suddenly bursts into flame, a makeshift bomb, sending blood and limbs flying.

(“ _Vido, you son of a bitch,”_ Zaeed howls from somewhere to their right.)

“They all use the same model,” Garrus says with grim satisfaction. He picks his rifle up again. “It’s got about a hundred vulnerabilities.”

“You hacked his _gun_?” Shepard sweeps her hand up, then down; a few metres away, a Blue Suns merc is flung up into the air, before crashing down again with the sound of breaking bones.

“Overloaded it,” Garrus says. His gun traces the path of the falling merc; once he’s still, a single shot to the head keeps him that way. “Learned that from that tech expert I was telling you about. The batarian. I saw him sabotage an M-90 Cain on the field once. Talk about a mushroom cloud.”

“Yeah?” Shepard drops into cover to reload her shotgun. “How’d you get a batarian working for you, anyway?”

“He was low-caste. A slave. His owner was smuggling tainted red sand. I killed him, he was grateful.” Garrus’ good mandible twitches. “He probably would’ve lived longer if I hadn’t. On our left, Shepard.”

Shepard flings a shockwave at the nearby mercs, hurling them out of cover for Garrus to pick off. She says, “You gave him his freedom. That counts for something.”

“I found his body,” Garrus says. There’s blue seeping through the dressings covering the left side of his face. “They cut him up and bled him out slow.”

“You didn’t kill him, Garrus.”

(Zaeed yells, “ _I’ll make you wish you were never born, Santiago_!”)

Garrus says, “I didn’t save him either.”

Shepard doesn’t push it. The Butcher of Torfan knows what it’s like to lose a squad under your command. She remembers the nights in the hospital on Arcturus afterwards, screaming herself awake from dreams of dead mouths accusing, dead hands pulling her down. The Alliance brass had been arguing about whether to try her as a war criminal or give her a medal, and none of it had seemed to matter; all she’d wanted was to stick her shotgun in her mouth and pull the trigger. She charges into the nearest merc in a flash of blue light, sending him flying; there’s a heavy just near him, she’s risking a blast at close range, but she knows Garrus has it under control. When the world shifts back to normal, the heavy is on the ground, clutching at her spurting throat.

“Nice work,” she tells him. There was a time when Garrus would thrill to her praise, glow under her attention. Now, his mandible only flicks out in a small, weary smile.


	5. ii.iv

**horizon**

“I would have followed you _anywhere_ , Commander,” says Ashley, her voice shaking, and Shepard feels a pit open up in the bottom of her stomach. “I thought you were gone. I – you were _more_ than our commander. Why didn’t you try to contact me? Why didn’t you let me know you were alive?”

Shepard’s nose is still bleeding, sluggishly. She’s overdone it with her biotics, hurling shockwave after shockwave at the husks threatening to overwhelm them. Pain radiates out from the L5n implant at the base of her skull. Her amp feels hot. Her muscles are trembling; she’s got about ten minutes, maybe fifteen, before she won’t be able to stand any more. “Not my choice,” she says. “I spent the last couple of years in some kind of coma while Cerberus rebuilt me.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Ash takes a step back, seems to notice the logo on Miranda’s bloodstained uniform for the first time. “You’re with Cerberus now? Garrus, too? I can’t believe the reports were right.”

“Reports?” Garrus says sharply. He looks up from where he’s helping Miranda apply medigel to her head wound. “You mean you already knew?”

Ashley nods, chewing her lip. “Alliance intel said Cerberus could be behind our missing colonies. We got a tip that this one could be the next to get hit. I went to Anderson, he wouldn’t talk. But there were rumours that you weren’t dead.” Her tone is accusing. “Worse, that you were working for the enemy.”

“Cerberus and I want the same thing: to save our colonies. That doesn’t mean I answer to them.” Shepard packs as much conviction into her voice as she can muster. If she can persuade Ashley, she might just be able to persuade herself, too.

“Do you really believe that? Or is that just what Cerberus wants you to think?” Ashley stalks closer. Yellow grass crunches under her feet. “I wanted to believe that you were alive, I just – never expected anything like _this_! You’ve turned your back on everything we stood for!”

“Ash, you know me.” Shepard tries to sound soothing. She’d talked Ash down on Eden Prime and after Virmire; surely she can do it again. “You know I’d only do this for the right reasons. You saw it yourself: the Collectors are targeting human colonies, and they’re working with the Reapers.”

“I’d like to believe you, Shepard. But I _don’t trust Cerberus_. And it worries me that you do! What did they _do_ to you?” She’s looking at Shepard’s scars, of course. Fair enough. The glowing cracks in her skin had been bad enough, but the red lights that were becoming visible in her eyes as her corneas degenerated were starting to make her look like a monster from a low-budget horror movie. “What if they’re behind it? What if _they’re_ the ones working with the Collectors?”

On the ground, Miranda makes a small, derisive sound, but doesn’t say anything. Maybe she knows nothing good will come of opening her mouth; maybe the head injury she’d sustained when the Praetorian had flung her off her feet still has her brain scrambled.

“Damn it, Williams!” Garrus comes to stand at Shepard’s shoulder. Good, she thinks, he’ll be able to catch her if her knees give out unexpectedly. “You’re so focused on Cerberus you’re ignoring the real threat.”

He probably isn’t helping. Back on the SR-1, Garrus and Ashley hadn’t exactly been close; they’d mostly stopped antagonizing each other by the end of the mission, but it wasn’t like they’d become friends. Shepard licks blood off her upper lip, and says, “You’re letting how you feel about their history get in the way of the facts.”

“Or maybe you feel like you owe Cerberus because they saved you. Maybe it’s _you_. Doesn’t matter. I still know where my loyalties lie. I’m an Alliance soldier; it’s in my blood.” She holds Shepard’s gaze for a long moment, before abruptly turning away. “I’m reporting back to the Citadel. I’ll let them decide if they believe your story.”

“We both know how that’s going to go.” Shepard can’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. “The Alliance will try to blame Cerberus, just like you did.”

“With good reason. Cerberus can’t be trusted!” Ash rounds on her again, but the fire in her eyes dies almost immediately. She looks haggard with exhaustion. She looks terribly sad. “Goodbye, Shepard. Just … try to be careful.”

Shepard watches her back as she walks away, jaw clenched. Garrus touches her shoulder, lightly, before going to haul Miranda to her feet.

Sunlight beats down on her like a fist. “Joker,” she says into her comms, “send the shuttle to pick us up. I’ve had enough of this colony.”

Hours later, after the shuttle trip back to the _Normandy,_ and the visit to medbay and the interrogation from Mordin about how his anti-seeker-swarm serum had held up on the ground, Shepard is sitting cross-legged at the desk in her cabin, eating most of a jar of peanut butter. That was the trouble with being a combat biotic: your life became a balancing act of calories, of constantly trying to replenish what your nervous system consumed, and things like eating entire blocks of cheese or whole cartons of eggs in a single sitting seemed both natural and appealing. Her laptop is open in front of her, her half-finished mission report waiting for her to complete it. She barely sees it. Her head is in a whole different star system.

She’s thinking about Alenko. Which is something she normally tries not to make a habit of, but seeing Ashley again has jarred the memory of him to the front of her mind. Gentle, sweet, dead Kaidan, who she’d known since their days serving together on the _Tokyo_ under Anderson; they’d stuck together back then, the only two biotic officers on the crew, bonding over headaches and neural itching. Kaidan, who liked cheap beer with fancy steak, who had a sprawling extended family forever vid-calling him, who’d told her so many stories about his parents’ orchard in Canada that she’d started to believe she might even see it someday. Kaidan, who she’d never even kissed, who she’d left to die on Virmire, who’d said: _You know it’s the right choice_. Who’d said: _It’s been an honour, ma’am._

The bomb had had to go off. They’d had to complete the mission. She had known it; Kaidan had known it. He had known from the start, perhaps, what she would do.

She bites down on her spoon until her teeth ache. Don’t think about it. Just s _top thinking about it_.

But telling herself that never works; ghosts swim upwards, the past and present tangled into one bloody mess. _I would have followed you anywhere,_ Ashley said, and Shepard remembers her old squad, in those dank, filthy tunnels under the surface of Torfan, pushing forward into death, against sense, against reason. Because she’d told them to, and they’d listened. Because she’d flung herself into the dark and they’d followed her, as she had known they would.

There is a knock at the door. Shepard starts from her reverie. EDI says, “Officer Vakarian is requesting entry.”

She rubs her aching eyes. “Let him in.”

The door slides open. Garrus sticks his head into the room. “Commander?”

“Garrus. How’s the plate?” He’d taken the brunt of a scion’s shockwave, earlier; it had dropped him so hard she’d heard something snap.

“Cracked, but holding together. Dr Chakwas says it’ll mend fast.” For once, he doesn’t have his visor on. Without it, his face looks oddly bare. “I … was more worried about you, actually.”

Shepard sets the jar of peanut butter down on the desk with slightly more force than is necessary. “Look,” she says, “I appreciate the thought, but I’m fine, Garrus. You don’t need to check up on me.”

“I know, Shepard.” He clears his throat. “The _real_ reason I’m here is to get your opinion on this … levo drink?” He holds out a bottle of whiskey, no doubt taken from the bar in the Port Observation room. “Kasumi said it was good, but I thought I should ask the person with the most experience.”

She can’t help smiling, even though it makes her scars sting. That’s Garrus, always where she wants him. As he crosses the room, a bottle of dextro alcohol in his other hand, the space hamster squeaks furiously. It doesn’t like him. Probably knows an apex predator when it smells one.

Time passes.

“I wonder if we can use the fabricators to make more of those Collector guns,” Garrus says. He is at this point mostly horizontal, sprawled over her couch. His body is all long lines and sharp angles: lean limbs, narrow waist, sharp hips. Shepard notices all this, then, to her discomfort, notices herself noticing. “I’d love to see how they perform at long range.”

Shepard is hanging upside-down off the bed, the tips of her hair nearly touching the floor. She tears her eyes away from his biceps, chiding herself internally, and says: “When are you gonna get a real gun, Vakarian? Something with a bit of kick?”

“Come on, Shepard,” he drawls. “I wouldn’t touch a shotgun if you paid me. Some of us actually place a bit of value on _marksmanship_.”

She scowls. “I know all about marksmanship. I _never_ miss.”

“That’s easy, when you’re always on top of your targets. Some of us can’t … charge? Whatever you call that flashy blue thing you do.” He sits up enough to take a sip of whatever clear shit he’s drinking, then flops back down. “That’s one thing I actually miss about Williams. She _knew_ her sniper rifles.”

Shepard says, in a rush: “I wanted to ask her to come with us.”

“She wouldn’t have, Shepard.”

“I know. I just . . .” She thumps the bedframe ineffectually. “Fuck, Garrus. Maybe she’s right. The Illusive Man leaked information about the mission to get the Collectors to hit Horizon, _just_ so we could meet them there. All those colonists – he used them as _bait._ ”

“Their lives are on his head. Not yours.” Garrus sounds firm. “I don’t trust Cerberus, and I know you don’t either. All those sick experiments they’ve done … we knew what they were from the start. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use them and their resources to actually do some good.”

She looks at him. His blue eyes are clear. “You know,” she says, tongue loosened by the whiskey, “you’d never have said that two years ago.”

Garrus fidgets with the bottle he’s holding. “What do you mean?”

“You were so … idealistic back then.” Bright-eyed, hot-headed turian kid, all _yes ma’am no ma’am we’re making the galaxy a better place ma’am!_ “Uncompromising. You’d never have worked with terrorists, no matter how similar your goals were.”

He’s quiet, for a few moments. Then he sighs. “Yeah, well. I’ve learned a lot, while you were … gone.” He never says _dead_ ; she’s grateful for that small kindness. “About getting the job done, no matter the cost. The ends justifying the means. You were the first person to teach me that, Shepard.”

All of a sudden she doesn’t feel nearly drunk enough. Scrambling upright, she picks the bottle off the floor. Feels the whiskey burn her throat.

“And I would have compromised,” he adds. “Even back then. I’d have worked with whoever you told me to.”

Shepard wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Yeah?” she mutters.

“You’re my commander.” Garrus smiles at her, his new, lopsided smile, his left mandible moving more than his right. “I’ve always trusted you to make the right decisions.”

Then he says: “Shepard? Are you okay? Did I say something –”

“I’m fine,” she says, struggling to regain control over her face. “This tastes like _shit_ , that’s all. What were you thinking, trusting Kasumi?”

Garrus looks sceptical. “You had to drink two-thirds of the bottle to figure that out?”

“You know me.” She forces herself to grin at him. That pit yawns deep and dark in her stomach. “I’m always thorough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, i romanced kaidan in me1 and let him die on virmire JUST for the drama of it all. no i will not be taking any constructive criticism at this time


	6. ii.v

**_normandy_ sr-2, main battery**

“Garrus received some news that put _fire_ in his eyes,” Kelly breathes, looking somewhat more excited about Garrus’ eyes than was strictly professional, and Shepard heads down to the main battery. For once, Garrus isn’t standing at the main console, muttering to himself as he subjects the firing algorithms to endless adjustments. Instead, he’s pacing, agitated. He turns to her as soon as she comes in.

“Shepard, I’m glad you came by. I’ve got something. I might need your help.” He’s talking fast, words tumbling over themselves. “You remember Sidonis? The one who betrayed my team? I’ve found a lead on him. There’s a specialist on the Citadel, name’s Fade. He’s an expert at helping people disappear. Sidonis was seen with him.”

Shepard nods. She doesn’t need an explanation; she’s pieced the story together, from the bits and pieces he’s told her. Sidonis had lured Garrus away from the base, then fed the merc bands enough information to let them go after his team. She’d seen the aftermath firsthand: ten corpses, covered with tarps, laid out on the concrete. Remembers lifting the sheet from one of them with the tip of her boot to reveal the remains under it. Their deaths had been brutal, even by Omega’s standards. “What are you planning to do when you find him?”

“You humans have a saying. _An eye for an eye, a life for a life?_ ” Garrus’ subvocals are loud with emotion. _“_ He owes me ten lives, and I plan to collect.”

She pushes her hair back from her face. “You sure that’s how you want to play it?”

“I’m sure. I don’t need you to agree with me, but I’d like your help.”

As if she’s going to say no. Garrus is walking into hell with her; a quick detour to the Citadel is the least she can do in return. “Where do we find Fade?”

“I’ve arranged a meeting. We’ll meet him in a warehouse near the Neon Markets, down on Zakera Ward.” His relief is palpable. “Thanks, Shepard. I appreciate you taking the time to help me.”

And just like that, they’ve put the first steps of an assassination plan into motion. Easy. She hangs around the battery a little longer, just to get some clarification – who were his sources, and how far did he trust them? What else did he know about Fade? What were the chances that this was a trap? – but Garrus is on edge, worrying at his bandages with a gloved talon, not in the mood to talk. She leaves him alone to occupy himself with torturing the Thanix cannon.

In the armory, she dismantles her shotgun, intending to install the new synchronized-pulsar mass effect field generator she’d picked up on Illium. Her mind wanders, as it has a frustrating tendency to do these days. Turians were a hell of a lot less individualistic than humans were – they put the group before the self, they were trained from childhood never to betray their team, never to let their people down. She’d learned that back in the xeno-culture modules of the early N-school courses, and seen it proven time and again in practice. The Hierarchy taught that death with honor was infinitely preferable to life as a traitor. But Sidonis had sold Archangel’s squad out anyway. What had pushed him to that? What could he have been promised that was worth going against the core tenets of his culture?

And why hadn’t he let the mercs kill Garrus too?

Either way, Archangel’s team is dead, and Garrus – who, for all his rebellious tendencies, is still turian through and through – blames himself. For not saving them. For not dying along with them.

Yeah, she gets it.

An eye for an eye? Fuck that. She'll give Garrus Sidonis' head on a platter, if he wants it. A life for half Garrus' face, for the shadows in his eyes, for the way his voice cracks when he talks about Omega. That sounds like a fair deal to Shepard.

“Commander?” Jacob is looking at her from the adjacent bench, eyebrows raised.

Damn, he’d been saying something. “What was that, Taylor?”

“I was just asking if you’d heard back from the team at Huerta Memorial.” He’s repairing his hardsuit with printed pieces from the fabricator. “Leslie’s still emailing me and she seems to be doing better, but she doesn’t know much about her prognosis. I was hoping one of the doctors could tell me more.”

Ah, yes. The Alliance team that had reached Aeia shortly after the _Normandy_ had left had taken the remnants of the _Gernsback_ crew to some fancy hospital on the Citadel for treatment. Jacob had learned the names of every one of the survivors, contacted their families, bombarded Mordin with so many questions about neural decay that he’d been banned from the tech lab. He was taking better care of his father’s crew more than Acting Captain Ronald Taylor ever had. Not that that was particularly difficult.

“Actually, we’re heading to the Citadel soon.” Shepard scrubs the inside of her Eviscerator’s barrel. “Got some business to take care of. You might be able to see the crew in person, if you can talk the hospital staff into letting you.”

He looks pleased. “Sounds good to me. Thanks, Shepard. You could come with me, you know. I’m sure they’d be glad to see you too.”

Shepard opens the bottle of gun oil, tries to keep the scowl off her face. She’d considered herself mostly desensitized to the horrors the galaxy had to offer, but what they’d seen on Aeia had rattled her. Those women, herded like so many animals – their dead eyes had reminded her of people she’d known growing up, on the flooded streets of that slum back on Earth, brains dug out by poverty and hunger and countless drugs into hollows of pain. Of the civilians on Elysium who’d survived the atrocities of the Skyllian Blitz, huddled in refugee camps and the ruins of what only days ago had been sleepy colonial towns, farmers with thousand-yard stares. Of all sorts of things she wished she could forget.

“I’ll … let you know, Jacob.”

“Sure thing, ma’am.” He turns back to his hardsuit, smiling slightly. He’s thawed a great deal towards her, these past few weeks. That’s what happens when you take a man to the wreck of a cargo ship to find and kill his estranged father; you make a _friend_. She’d been impressed by his poise, his coldness, as he’d handed his father a pistol to kill himself with. Hadn’t known he’d had it in him, really. It had been a good move. After everything he’d done, Ronald Taylor hadn’t deserved to live.

Not that the mission had really been about doing the right thing. She’d taken Jacob to Aeia for the same reason that she’d taken Jack to blow up that Cerberus base, accompanied Kasumi to Bekenstein to steal her partner’s greybox, helped Miranda keep her sister out of their father’s clutches. So that they would have no unfinished business, no lingering attachments, to keep them on this side of the Omega-4 relay. So that they’d be prepared to hit that Collector base as soon as Shepard told them to.

That was what being in command was all about: making sure everybody was ready to die. For all his mentorship and guidance, Anderson had never told her that. At least, not in so many words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now we’re getting somewhere! next chapter the loyalty mission that this story was supposed to be about will actually start lmao. anyway, jacob deserved better, he could’ve been such an interesting character. also, can you tell idk anything abt guns?


	7. ii.vi

**citadel wards, factory district**

Shepard tosses a LOKI mech into the air with a flick of her blue-wreathed hand; before she can slam it back down into the floor, a three-round burst from Garrus’ Incisor finishes it off. “ _I love this rifle_ ,” sounds smugly through her comms.

“CHIKTIKKA,” Tali wails, as the drone flickers out of existence after taking too many shots.

“You can just bring it back once your omnitool cools down,” Shepard says, exasperated.

“It’s not about that! I hate seeing Chiktikka get hurt.” Ahead of them, a Blue Suns merc starts to lean out from the crate he’s hiding behind; Tali’s shotgun blast sends him scrambling back. “She’s such a sweet girl.”

“It’s a _drone_.”

Tali ejects her heat sink. “You’ll understand once I install a VI on her, Shepard. I’m just waiting for the new _Fleet and Flotilla_ character personalities to be released, then –”

Shepard charges away before she can inadvertently learn anything about _Fleet and Flotilla_. The remaining mercs scatter; it only takes a few minutes before she and Garrus and Tali are the only living things remaining in this section of the factory. They regroup in the nearby makeshift office.

“So,” Shepard says, hitting the button on the console to open the observation window, “Harkin’s finally gone completely bad.” She remembers him vaguely, a drunk slumped over a grimy table at Chora’s Den. He’d sobered up dramatically once she’d shoved a gun in his face.

“He was always a pain in the ass,” Garrus mutters. “But I’m in no mood for his games. If he doesn’t cooperate, I’ll beat him within an inch of his life.”

Shepard glances at him. He’s got the injured side of his face to her; his scars are dark against the smooth pale surface of his plates. “You … seem to be getting tense, Garrus.”

“Harkin may know why Sidonis wanted to disappear.” He looks over at her. “If so, he knows why we’re here. And I don’t want him tipping Sidonis off.”

Shepard nods. Together, they peer out through the scratched plexiglass at the piles of crates and machinery. Then, in the distance, something moves.

Garrus drops to a crouch, expanding his sniper rifle. Shepard flattens herself against the wall, gun in hand. Behind them, Tali looks up, grabbing her Eviscerator.

Everything is silent and still.

“…did you see that?”

“I saw something,” Shepard says.

Garrus’ visor flickers rapidly. “He’s getting ready for us.”

Shepard unhooks her canister of energy gel from her hip, squeezes some of it into her mouth. The stuff Cerberus gives its biotics has an even more revolting synthetic berry flavor than the Alliance standard. issue. “What are you going to do to Harkin if he won’t cooperate?” she asks.

“He’s a real criminal now, working with the Blue Suns. I should just shoot him on sight.” Garrus’ talons tap out a rhythm against the stock of his rifle. “But, I need him alive, so I won’t do any permanent damage.”

Shepard shrugs. As far as she’s concerned, anyone who calls her _princess_ deserves what they get. “Whatever it takes.”

“Exactly. I knew you’d understand.”

She glances down at him. “You still planning to kill Sidonis when we find him?”

“That’s the plan. It’ll be quick and painless. Unlike everybody he betrayed, he’ll be spared the agony of a slow death.” His subvocals are heavy and rumbling. His voice sounds almost like a growl. “It’s more than he deserves, but as long as he’s dead, I’ll be satisfied.”

That last part sounds like something he’s told himself before. Shepard weathers another mouthful of energy gel while she considers. “Garrus,” she says at last. “Do you really think killing Sidonis will make things right?”

He looks startled. “I’m surprised you’d ask me that. You’re the one who taught me killing was the best solution.”

And she had, hadn’t she? She’d watched Garrus pointing his gun at Dr Saleon all those years ago, watched him waver, uncertain, torn between what he wanted and what he’d been taught was right. As she had known he would. It hadn’t taken her long to see through all Garrus’ talk of hard-headed justice and results mattering more than methods. He’d been young, unsure of himself, desperate for guidance. _Put him out of his misery_ , she’d ordered, _so we can get going._ And afterwards, as he’d stared down at the salarian’s body, shaking slightly, she’d put her hand on his shoulder, made him look her in the eye. _Remember that feeling_ , she’d told him. _That’s how it should be._

The adrenaline-rush of victory, the grim satisfaction of a job well done. That was what she always had lived for. What she _still_ lived for. Wasn’t it? God _damn_ it.

“Only when there’s no other options,” she argues, which is bullshit, and she knows it. “You still have options.”

“Maybe. But this is personal.” Garrus looks away from her. Behind them, Tali is checking her suit for wear and tear, appearing not to listen, which means she’s probably listening intently. “I’ll pull the trigger, and I’ll live with the consequences. All I’m asking is that you help me find him.”

Like there was any question that she would.

Two exploded YMIR mechs and half their supply of medigel later, Shepard watches Garrus slam his knee between Harkin’s legs. As he curls in on himself, groaning, she takes a step forward. “That had to hurt!” she says brightly. “Maybe you should just tell us what we want to know.”

“Maybe.” Harkin stands, painfully. His forehead is bleeding where Garrus had pistol-whipped him. “I still don’t know what you want.”

“You helped a friend of mine disappear,” Garrus says, almost pleasantly. “I need to find him.”

Harkin eyes him warily. “I might need a little more information than that.”

“His name is Sidonis. Turian, came from the—”

Harkin cuts him off, flatly. “I know who he is, and I’m not telling you squat.”

“Harkin,” Shepard says sweetly, “this doesn’t have to be hard.”

“Screw you!” No _sit your sweet little ass down beside ol’ Harkin_ this time. “I don’t give out client information. It’s bad for business.”

Garrus drops him, neatly. He rests one booted foot on Harkin’s throat.. “You know what else is bad for business?” he snarls. “A broken neck!”

He presses down. Harkin chokes and struggles and tries to shout. Tali, who’s supposed to be watching the door, is looking over her shoulder with alarm. Watching someone suffocate is never a pretty sight.

Some horrible part of Shepard’s mind says: _Nice legs, though._

Harkin’s protests are turning to strained wheezes. Suddenly concerned, Shepard reaches out, touches Garrus’ back lightly—no point killing him before getting the information. Garrus eases off at once. Harkin sits up, gasping.

“Terminus really changed you, huh, Garrus?” he rasps.

“No. But Sidonis … opened my eyes.” Garrus jerks his head towards the terminal in the corner. “Now arrange a meeting.”

Harkin doesn’t argue. Drags himself upright and stumbles towards the computer, clutching the wall. He spins some story about compromised identity over the line to Sidonis; Shepard’s only half-listening. She’s watching Garrus closely. His face is inscrutable.

He asks her, very quietly: “What do you think?”

Under her helmet, Shepard licks her cracked lips. It’s probably just her mind playing tricks on her, but she could swear that her blood tastes more metallic these days than it used to. “It’s your call, Vakarian,” she says, and he nods. Turns his gun over in his hand.

“It’s all good,” Harkin says, turning away from the terminal. “He wants to meet you in front of Orbital Lounge. Middle of the day. So … if our business here is done, I’ll be going—"

Garrus lunges for him. Drags him in, gets in his face. “I don’t think so. You’re a criminal now, Harkin.”

“So what, you’re just gonna kill me?” Harkin has balls, she’ll give him that. Face-to-face with a mouthful of viciously sharp turian teeth and he was still talking. “That’s not your style, Garrus.”

They stare each other down for a long moment. Shepard knows what he’s thinking; knows, deep down, that she should intervene. This is Garrus’ mission, not hers; he’s the one calling the shots. But –

Garrus lets Harkin go. Shepard exhales a breath she hadn’t realised she was holding. “Kill you? No.” The barrel of his gun tilts downwards. “But I don’t mind slowing you down a little--”

Behind Shepard, Tali jumps as the shot rings out. Harkin’s knee bursts in blood. He howls.

“--maybe giving C-Sec a blood trail to follow.”

Harkin clutches at his leg, writhing. “ _Bastard_!”

Shepard steps forward, looks down at him. “You’re lucky,” she tells him, over the sound of his screams. “I wouldn’t have shot you in the leg.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the drama! the amount of canon dialogue i had to transcribe! the fact that tali’s drone is apparently named chiktikka and not “chatika” like i thought! next chapter: awkward skycar conversations on the way to murder.


	8. ii.vi

**citadel wards, highway**

They take a rented skycar down to the seedier parts of the wards. It’s just the two of them: that’s all you really need for an assassination. Garrus drives, much to Shepard’s chagrin. She’s relegated to the passenger seat, staring out at the Citadel’s vast glittering sprawl. No matter how many times she visits, the sheer scale of the place is still breathtaking. She’d thought Arcturus Station was big, but comparing it to the Citadel was like comparing a gunship to a dreadnought. As a kid on Earth, she’d clung hungrily to the images of offworld life she saw in ads and recruitment posters – prefab cottages in golden wheat-fields, arcologies soaring into the heavens, mansions on the rolling hills of Bekenstein, everything a thousand times cleaner and brighter than anything she knew. But she could never have imagined anything like this.

“You know this district?” she asks.

“Sort of. In theory, mostly.” Garrus is the most infuriatingly law-abiding driver she has ever encountered. He never goes over the speed limit. He yields right of way to people who probably don’t even _deserve_ it. He refuses to lean on the horn and actually blocks Shepard with his elbow when she tries to do it for him. They’ve been stuck behind the same truck for ages now, and he refuses to overtake because of the minor detail of oncoming traffic “C-Sec doesn’t have a presence here. It’s one of the areas they turn a blind eye to.”

“So that’s why Bailey didn’t seem interested.” They’d swung by the police station earlier, to inform the captain that they’d be on official Spectre business near the Orbital Lounge later in the day. Shepard figured that since the Council had made it clear they wanted nothing to do with her, _official Spectre business_ was whatever business she happened to be involved in.

“Right. Nobody cares what happens in places like this.” Below the lanes of traffic, a troupe of scrawny, tattered-looking children emerges unexpectedly from an air-duct’s narrow opening. Shepard watches, startled, as they bound along the edge of the highway.

“So, a good place for someone wanting to disappear,” Shepard says, craning her head to watch as the children vanish around the bend. Street kids, here on the Citadel, at the heart of galactic power. What kind of work do _they_ do to get by? Running messages, scavenging tech to sell? She doubts they kill rats or bail out flooded basements like she often had, before she was old and tough enough to be of interest to the gangs. Here, the Keepers probably have all that sorted.

The navigation system on the dashboard blinks an alert. Garrus banks left. He says, vehemently, “As far as C-Sec’s concerned, people poor enough that they have to live here have already disappeared. They’re too far away from the Presidium to matter.”

That’s Garrus, always wanting to take on every injustice in the galaxy. She looks at him sidelong. It’d taken her a long time to figure out how to read turian faces – they’re not very expressive – but it doesn’t take much detective work to see that Garrus isn’t doing too good. His mandibles are high and tight with stress. His brow-plates are furrowed. His knee is bouncing in the universal gesture of _I don’t want to be here_.

There’s a part of Shepard that wants to just call the mission off, order Garrus back to the ship. She’s reasonably sure he’d listen. She won’t do it, of course. Garrus is still her soldier, but he’s not her protégé any more; it’s been a long time since he’s needed her guidance. He’s his own man. He can make his own decisions. It’s not her place to interfere. And anyway, he’s as unflinchingly, unfailingly loyal to her as he’s always been; she owes him a little bit of that loyalty in return.

And _yet_.

Before betraying the team, Sidonis had been Archangel’s second-in-command. His friend. Close enough that he hadn’t been able to bring himself to let the mercs kill Garrus. And now Garrus is going to kill him, and Shepard is going to help, and it’s just _not_ sitting right with her.

Shaking her from her reverie, Garrus mutters, “Harkin’s a bloody menace. We shouldn’t have just let him go. He deserved to be punished.”

“I’m getting a little worried about you, Garrus.” She tries to keep her voice neutral. “You were pretty hard on Harkin.”

“You don’t think he deserved it?”

Shepard shrugs. “It’s just not like you.”

He shifts gears. Looks away. When he speaks, his voice is low and pained. “What do you _want_ from me, Shepard? What would you do if someone betrayed you?”

Get her revenge, of course; she doesn’t need to think about _that_. A myriad of possible methods, none of them quick and painless. “I don’t know,” she lies, “but I wouldn’t let it change me.”

“I would’ve said the same thing, before it happened to me. Who else is going to bring Sidonis to justice? Nobody else knows what he’s done, nobody else cares. I don’t see any other options.”

Neither does she, really. But here’s the thing: you can’t wash blood with blood. Shepard knows this, because she’s tried. Under the surface of Torfan, at the heart of the raider base, the surviving batarian forces had laid down their weapons and come out with their hands up. And Lieutenant Shepard – who’d received her field commission less than a month ago, which everyone knew was only because she was a biotic, and who was only in command because Major Kyle had been incapacitated by a blow to the head during the first push – had given the few soldiers who remained to her the order to open fire. It had been quick. Afterwards she had walked among the dead, checking each body for life signs, putting a bullet into each head just in case.

Later, during her trial, she had claimed that she did this because she lacked the forces to maintain order among so many prisoners of war. This was a good argument, and may have been what saved her from being court-martialed. It was also a lie. She had executed the surrendering raiders because three-quarters of her squad was dead, and she could not bring them back, and it was her fault. An eye for an eye, corpses for corpses, the tunnels of Torfan running with blood for the burning fields of Elysium, piles of dead batarians for the screams ringing in Shepard’s ears.

It hadn’t worked.

“Let me talk to him,” she suggests impulsively.

“Talk all you want, it won’t change my mind.” Garrus is refusing to look at her. “I don’t care what his reasons were. He screwed us – he deserves to die.”

“Garrus.” Shepard’s scars are itching. “Do you _really_ want to kill him?”

“I appreciate the concern,” he says, stiffly. Sets the skycar down. “But I’m not you.”

She says, low and urgent, “This isn’t _you_ , either.”


	9. ii.vii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> these two chapters were short, so i thought i'd put them both up. next up: murder aftermath!

**citadel wards, in front of orbital lounge**

Sidonis doesn’t look like much. Young, scrawny even by turian standards, with grey plates a little darker than Garrus’ and purple colony markings over his mandibles. He’s panicky, hands shaking with nerves as he approaches her.

“ _You’re in my shot_ ,” Garrus says tightly through her comms. “ _Move to the side._ ”

And it’s _not_ Shepard’s place to intervene. But she already has, hasn’t she? She’d interfered years ago, when she’d taken a young soldier who thought he could save the galaxy and taught him to think like the Butcher.

So she stays put. “Listen, Sidonis,” she says. “I’m here to help you.”

He flinches. “Don’t ever say that name out loud.”

She talks over him. “I’m a friend of Garrus’. He wants you dead. I’m hoping that’s not necessary.”

Garrus’ exhale of shock is harsh in her ear.

“Garrus?” Sidonis takes a step back. “Is this some kind of joke?”

“ _Damn it, Shepard!_ ” Garrus sounds furious. _“If he moves, I’m taking the shot!_ ”

“You’re not kidding, are you?” Sidonis shakes his head. “Screw this. I’m not sticking around to find out. Tell Garrus I had my own problems.” He turns to go. Shepard grabs him by the edge of his cowl, yanks him back around.

“Don’t move,” she says, in a voice like iron. “I am the _only_ thing standing between you and a hole in the head.”

“ _Fuck._ ” Sidonis’ hide is pale, bloodless. “Look – I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t have a choice!”

Garrus’ voice is venomous. “ _Everyone has a choice_.”

Shepard’s neck prickles. She’s got her damn _head_ right in Garrus’ scope, no helmet, no armour. He won’t shoot if there’s a chance he’ll hit her, she knows that, but _fuck_ is it an unpleasant sensation.

“They got to me!” Sidonis’ subvocals are high and taut. “Said they’d kill me if I didn’t help. What was I supposed to do?”

Of course. That was what it would always come to, in the end: death and the fear of it.

“ _Let me take the shot, Shepard, he’s a damn coward_!”

“That’s it?” she demands. Matches him step for step as he paces frantically. Garrus will talk himself out of this if she just buys enough time, she’s sure of it. She’s almost sure of it. “You were just trying to save yourself?”

“I know what I did.” His voice is hollow. “I know they died because of me, and I have to live with that. I wake up every night sick and sweating, each of their faces staring at me. _Accusing_ me.”

(-- _strapped to the bed in the hospital on Arcturus, screaming when the sedatives wear off, dead eyes watching her from the walls and floor and ceiling--)_

“I’m already a dead man.” Sidonis’ breathing is ragged. “I don’t sleep. Food has no taste. Some days, I just want it to be over.”

“ _Just give me a chance_.” Garrus’ voice is raw with desperation. Her best soldier, her best friend, _pleading_ with her.

Shepard’s scars burn with a sudden, scalding rush of pain that makes her eyes water.

“…if that’s what you want,” she says.

He nods, almost imperceptibly. “No more sleepless nights,” he murmurs.

“ _For either of us, Sidonis,_ ” Garrus whispers.

“And –” Sidonis looks at her. His eyes are almost peaceful. Perhaps he can already see it, that deathly ocean Thane talks about, that calm sea and distant shore. “Thank you.”

Sick to her stomach, Shepard nods. She moves aside.

Of course, she lets him take the shot. Of course, the shot is perfect.

The Butcher of Torfan always gets the job done.


	10. iii.i

_iii. after_

**_normandy_ SR-2, captain’s quarters**

Shepard dreams of falling.

Alchera looms white below her as an explosion flings her away from the remains of her beautiful ship, soundless in the vacuum of space but making her teeth rattle with the force. Alerts flash red in her helmet’s HUD, but she doesn’t need them to know she can’t breathe. She scrabbles uselessly at her hardsuit’s damaged tubing, lungs screaming. _Normandy_ burns against the stars, against the endless void, and all she can hear are her own strangled gasps - all she can think is a trapped animal’s howl of _No not like this_ –

As always, she wakes just before everything goes black.

Panting, swallowing mouthfuls of air, she stares up for a few moments at the skylight some _asshole_ thought it was a good idea to install above her bed. Beyond the blue glow of the mass effect envelope, the stars wink cheerfully at her. Shepard claws the tangled sheets off, runs a hand through her sweaty hair, awake for less than a minute and already in a terrible mood.

Every time she falls asleep, it’s the same fucking piece of shit godawful dream. A little variation would be nice, but apparently that’s too much for her brain to handle. She throws herself out of bed, stalks into the bathroom, where she splashes cold water over her face. Picks at her scars in the bathroom mirror. They’re definitely getting worse.

There are dark hollows under her eyes, too. And it seems like every time she looks at herself she sees new grey hairs. Is that … normal? She’s only thirty, or maybe she’s thirty-two – are you supposed to count years you spend dead towards your age? She doesn’t know.

Funny. She’d never cared much about her looks, but now that they’re irrevocably gone, she misses them. There had been a small, sordid power in being able to inspire lust. These days, when strangers’ heads turn in her direction, they wear the sort of expressions typically reserved for looking at a particularly nasty car crash.

Back at her desk, Shepard checks the time. Early evening, or its equivalent in the ship’s cycle. She’s been asleep for maybe five hours, which is more than she usually gets. _Six_ hours ago, she’d been attached to all sorts of probes and sensors and wires in the tech lab, as Mordin and Miranda painstakingly disabled the safety protocols on her amp. Amp hacking was very difficult, extremely dangerous, and technically illegal throughout Council space; all in all, it was surprising Shepard had never tried it before. It enabled a biotic to generate stronger fields, which was good. It also carried a risk of permanent neurological damage, which was less good.

Her implant feels sore and her head aches fiercely, but she’s not blind and she can still feel all her limbs, so it seems to have gone well. Maybe she should go down to the shuttle bay, throw some empty crates around to see how –

Movement, behind her, where nothing should be moving at all. Shepard grabs the pistol lying next to her laptop, spins around and points it at – Chiktikka vas Paus, which starts to play an instrumental arrangement of the _Fleet and Flotilla_ theme.

“Tali,” Shepard growls.

“You were going to shoot Chiktikka.” Tali’s voice is baleful over the soaring strings. “I can’t believe you.”

“There a reason you can’t just use the intercom like everybody else?” Tali’s habit of sending her drone through the ship’s air ducts whenever she wanted to talk to someone had been causing consternation aboard the _Normandy_ ever since she’d started doing it.

“Of course. This is _much_ cuter.” Down in Engineering, Tali does something that makes the drone spin playfully, sending pink and purple light shimmering over the aquarium’s glass. The space hamster chatters with alarm. “And Miranda has the intercom bugged, you know. She listens to everything we say through it.”

“Miranda has the whole ship bugged.” Shepard tosses the gun back onto her desk. “She listens to everything we say anyway.”

“I know. Hey, Miranda, stop spying! By the way, I heard you broke the factory warranty on your biotic amp. What are you going to do if it starts malfunctioning?”

“If my amp ever gives out on me, I’ll be dead long before I get a chance to take it in for repairs.”

“Cheerful as ever, Shepard. Seems like you’re just fine.” The drone stops spinning, the music fades out. “Anyway. I wanted to ask you how Garrus is doing.”

Shepard’s headache intensifies. “Shouldn’t you ask _Garrus_ how Garrus is doing?”

“I would, but I haven’t seen him. He hasn’t come out of the battery for _two days_ , Shepard. When I went to get a refill of my antibiotics from Dr Chakwas, she said he’d missed his physical. He won’t answer the door when I knock, and you know he broke the intercom while he was trying to disable EDI’s monitoring devices. I’d send the drone in, but …” She trails off. “I figured you’d know something. You two are practically synced to each other’s suits. Well, you would be, if you had suits to sync. You know what I mean.”

She presses her thumbs into her temples. “I haven’t spoken to him since we got back from the Citadel.”

“Oh.” The drone swings one way, then the other. “I don’t mean to pry, but … what exactly happened, Shepard?”

She gets up, goes over to the cage on the shelf. The space hamster squeaks grumpily at her. She opens the door and lets it settle onto her palm. “I compromised the mission,” she says flatly. “I tried to compromise the mission, anyway. I told Sidonis what was going on, made him talk. I thought it’d convince Garrus to let him live.” She strokes the hamster’s head with one finger. “I was wrong.”

“I … didn’t realise.” The drone revolves in place. “You’re usually so -- well. I expected you to think killing Sidonis was the right thing to do.”

“So did I.”

There’s a long moment of silence.

Then Tali says, “You’re the captain of the _Normandy_. You can override the locks on any of the doors, right?”

Shepard sighs. “I’m the last person Garrus wants to see right now.”

“You’re our captain,” Tali says again. “It’s not about what any of us _want_.” The drone starts beeping softly; it’s running out of charge. “Damn it! Shepard, if you –” Her voice distorts briefly. “—sure he’ll understand.”

“But—"

“ _Please_ , Shepard. I’m worried.” Even when she’s several decks away and talking through a drone, Tali knows how to play up the wholesomeness factor. Shepard can practically see her wringing her hands dramatically. “Say you’ll talk to him?”

Shepard grinds her teeth. The space hamster is lying flat in her palm, looking blissful. “ _…fine_. I’ll try.”

“Oh, good! If you’d said no I would have had to shock you, and –” The end of her sentence is lost in static.

“But, Tali. You know I’m no good at –”

The drone fizzles abruptly out of existence. Shepard glares for a few seconds at the space where it was, then sighs.

This is the problem: she’d disobeyed Garrus’ orders the way he _never_ disobeyed hers. He’d asked for her help, and she’d taken things into her own hands, certain that she knew better. And maybe she was _right_ , maybe she had known better, but hadn’t been able to follow through. Either way, she’d fucked up, and the result had been a bloody mess. As is frequently the result when she’s involved.

Garrus had been furious with her, afterwards – not that he’d argued or raised his voice, he never does, but the icy silence in the skycar on the way back to the docks had been enough. If he was anyone else, any other member of her crew, she wouldn’t have tolerated it. She’d have talked things through whether they liked it or not. But Garrus isn’t anyone else. He’s her best friend. He’s the only person in the galaxy she trusts to the point that she’d willingly put her head in his scope, and he trusts her just as much or maybe more, and she’d unceremoniously fucked him over.

Shepard lifts the space hamster to her face, holds it absently against her cheek. It chitters contentedly at her.

The _other_ problem is that she’s attracted to him. Now that she’s finally put it into words, it’s so stupid it makes her want to bash her head against her desk. She is not – she has _never_ been a xenophile. She’s never even thought about sex with an alien. Okay, that’s not true, she has, but it’s 2183, who _hasn’t_? Fornax magazines had basically been currency during boot camp, and she’d never felt anything for their contents other than mildly horrified fascination. She can appreciate turians for their aesthetic qualities, sure – their bodies are superbly elegant killing machines, and Shepard has always been able to recognize a well-designed weapon – but she’s never wanted to _fuck_ one.

Until now.

It’s the stress, getting to her. That’s all. She’s under horrifying amounts of pressure right now, and sex has always been the easiest form of relief, a fact which had led to her being written up more than once for fraternization during her years as an enlisted soldier. And she hasn’t gotten laid in more than two years _,_ which is a long time, even if she had spent most of it comatose. Of _course_ she’s frustrated.

And Garrus is the person she’s closest to, the person she spends the most time around, the person she likes the most, and okay fine if she’s _entirely_ honest with herself she’s always liked the tall lanky types.

God damn it.

Shepard stands up and goes back to the cage. She tips the space hamster gently back inside, ignoring its appalled squeaking, and closes the door again. Tali’s right. She’s the captain of the _Normandy_ , whatever that means anymore. She’d managed to stop Jack and Miranda from murdering each other. Sorting her own shit out with Garrus can’t possibly be more difficult than that. She leaves her cabin and presses the elevator button, waits for the lift to arrive.

 _Fuck_ , her head hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter brought to you by my undying love for tali’zorah, designated adorable genius younger sister of everybody on the normandy


	11. iii.ii

**_normandy_ sr-2 crew deck**

Smoking is a bad habit, one she’d almost managed to kick back in ’81. But it turns out that dying and being resurrected makes you stop caring about lung cancer much at all. Anyway, discipline according to Cerberus standards is significantly more lax than on an Alliance vessel; nobody on the SR-2 seems to care if their commanding officer is breathing toxins into the air system. Nobody except Dr Chakwas, that is, who shoots Shepard a withering look through the medbay windows as she walks past. Shepard waves and exhales smoke in her direction. Chakwas pretends not to see.

The battery door is indeed locked, which to the rest of the crew probably doesn’t seem unusual. Garrus keeps to himself, as he always has. Being the only turian on a Cerberus ship can’t be pleasant, as much as he assures her everyone is polite. Shepard raps on the door with her knuckles, gives him a chance to answer. He doesn’t. Without giving herself a chance to think about it, she presses her hand to the lock. The override is immediate. The door slides open.

As always, the battery is dimly lit, the only light coming from the flickering consoles all around the room. As always, it’s scrupulously tidy. Turian military discipline means no clutter allowed. There’s barely a trace that anyone lives in here: just a bedroll folded neatly in the corner along with several weapon cases, crates stacked to form a makeshift workbench, a few datapads and containers of painkillers. And Garrus, at the main console as usual, doing god knows what to the guns. He looks over his shoulder, startled, as she comes in.

He does not look happy to see her.

“I need to talk to you,” Shepard says.

Garrus glances at the console behind him. “Can it wait for a bit? I’m in the middle of some–”

“No,” Shepard says. “It can’t. You’ve been locked up in here for too long. Tali’s worried.”

“Tell her there’s nothing to worry about.” He sounds terse. “The Thanix cannon’s draw needed rebalancing after the latest power grid overhaul. I’ve been running simulations.”

“For two whole cycles? _Sure_. Heard you skipped your physical, too. I talked to Gardner, he spends all day in the mess, and he hasn’t seen you once. Have you even been eating?”

He doesn’t dignify that with an answer. His good mandible flicks out, then back, in what is unmistakably irritation. She’s going about this all wrong. Damn it, she’s never been any good at the soft stuff. What she _has_ always been good at is saying whatever comes into her head in an authoritative tone of voice that makes other people think she’s right. This works on everyone except Garrus, who knows her well enough that he can tell when she’s bullshitting. Shepard pinches the bridge of her nose.

“Look,” she says, “about Sidonis –”

He turns back to his keyboard. “I don’t want to talk about it, Shepard.”

“Too bad,” she snaps. Stomps around so she’s leaning against the railings, facing him. “I’m not leaving until we do.”

“There’s nothing to say.” He starts typing again. “It’s done.”

“Is it? The reason we did this was to give you some peace of mind.” She’s taking refuge in cold pragmatism, the way she always does. She doesn’t know how to do anything else. “But it seems like you’re even more in your own head than you were before.”

“Well, I’m not.” Garrus isn’t looking at her. “I know the drill, Commander, no unfinished business on this side of the Omega-4 Relay. Trust me, I’m completely focused on the mission.”

“Bullshit,” Shepard says shortly. “Garrus, you’re angry with me, I get it. I –” The apology is stuck on the tip of her tongue. She can’t quite get it out. “I’d be angry too.”

His head comes up. He glares at her, eyes like blue ice. “Then _why_ —”

“Because I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“By _jeopardizing the mission_?”

“By trying to stop you from killing him.” Her headache is back with a vengeance. “Before, in the car, you weren’t listening. You weren’t yourself.”

He dismisses the holographic keyboard with a sharp gesture. “Yeah. You said that before. Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do, Shepard. I’ve always _hated_ injustice. Sidonis—"

“—was your friend. That’s the problem.”

Garrus’ subvocals pick up. She’s close enough that she can hear them even when he’s not speaking: low and rumbling, a warning. It makes Shepard’s head hurt more. She presses on. “He was your friend and he was the last of your team, and you put him down. And now you’re the only one left. And you don’t understand why you’re still around. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Shepard.” His voice is dangerously quiet. “If I wanted to be analyzed, I’d talk to Chambers.”

“You’d have to leave the battery, first. And you can’t do that because you’re holed up in here, feeling worse instead of better, because the eye-for-an-eye thing doesn’t _work_ , Garrus, it never works the way you want it to.”

His talon taps a hard rhythm against the console. “This is about Torfan, isn’t it?” he demands.

Of course he’d figure it out. He knows all the gristly details, even the stuff she hadn’t told the shrinks back on Arcturus. “Maybe,” she says. “Yes. Look, I understand—”

“No you _don’t_ , Shepard, because if you did you wouldn’t have tried to stop me. I was on Omega for _two years_. Those people – my team – I led them for two years.” He’s stepped forward, around the console, towering over her. “They trusted me to keep them alive. I couldn’t do that, _because of him._ Ten people died slow, painful deaths _because of him._ I don’t care what his reasons were, Shepard. He had to die. I don’t know why his life meant so much to you, when you’ve killed for much less, but -”

“That’s not what I’m saying!” Her body fills with electric heat as her biotics flare, involuntarily, the way they do when she’s angry enough. Without conscious control, the generated field isn’t usually powerful enough to manifest outside of her system. Now, with every safety protocol but the most basic on her amp disabled, a blue aura surrounds her, lights the main battery up. Garrus, to his credit, doesn’t even flinch. “Do you seriously think I tried to stop you because Sidonis’ life _mattered_ to me? He let ten soldiers die for his sake. I can do the math. And even if he hadn’t, he betrayed _you_ , Garrus. _He hurt you_. If it were up to me I’d have killed him slow.”

At this, Garrus falters, narrows his eyes at her. Words keep tumbling out of her mouth. “Sidonis isn’t the point. The point is _you_. Omega fucked you up, it’s still fucking you up, and I’m worried about you. There’s a thin line between killing because you have to and killing because you want to, and I don’t want to see you cross it, Garrus.”

There is a moment of silence. Biotic light flickers over the Thanix cannon’s silvery metal. Garrus presses the heel of his hand briefly to his forehead. Closes his eyes, then opens them.

“So you – you think Sidonis deserved to die.”

“Yes.”

“But you don’t think _I_ should have been the one to kill him.”

It sounds so incredibly stupid when he sets it out like that that Shepard can’t quite say yes. She nods, briefly.

“Then _why didn’t you just stop me_?”

This is so outrageous that she’s momentarily lost for words. Without thinking, she reaches forward, grabs the edge of his cowl and yanks him towards her. “What the _hell_ did you think I was trying to do, Vakarian?”

“You didn’t need to try!” His subvocal growl is so loud she can feel the vibrations passing through his plates and into her hand. “If you’d ordered me to stand down, I would have. If you’d told me you were calling the mission off I’d have listened. Shepard, you could order me to shoot myself in the head and I’d probably think _good call_ before pulling the trigger! Don’t you know that? Don’t you know how I –” He cuts himself off. The dead mass of cybernetics that passes for Shepard’s heart aches, sudden and agonizing. “I don’t understand you. I don’t – you’re the one who taught me that killing was the best –"

“ _I was wrong_!”

It comes out a lot louder than she’d intended. It’s loud enough, actually, that Garrus shuts his mouth, looks at her uncertainly. With an effort of will, Shepard lets go of him, forces her biotics down. The blue glow fades.

She says, more quietly, “I was wrong. I should never have–” She passes a hand over her face. “You were so young. I know it wasn’t that long ago, but you were _so young_. With all your ideas about justice, and helping people, and doing the right thing. You wanted me to teach you, so I taught you what I knew. But I’ve only ever known one thing, Garrus, and it’s sure as hell not justice.”

“Shepard-”

“You are a better person than I am,” she says, vehemently. “You always were. You have to stay that way. _I need you_ to stay that way. I tried to stop you from killing Sidonis because I – I wanted to be – to you –what you are to me. And I’m sorry for that. But I’m also sorry I didn’t try harder.”

They stare at each other, faces inches apart, for a strange moment that seems to drag on and on. Until Shepard hisses, looks down at her smarting hand. Her neglected cigarette has burned all the way down to her fingers. She stubs it out on the railing behind her, muttering obscenities.

When she looks back, Garrus is slumped over the console, the energy drained out of him. He says, quietly, “Just – tell me one thing, Shepard. When does it start to get easier?”

She chews her lip. Then she says, “It doesn’t, really. You just learn to distract yourself.”

He laughs, humorlessly. “Thanks. I think. That’s … about what I expected, really.”

She looks at him for a moment. Then she says, a little gruffly, “ _Have_ you been eating?”

“…sure. Sometimes.” He drags a talon across the console’s surface, aimlessly. “Mostly, I’ve been praying.”

“What?”

“To the spirits. For guidance.” He fidgets with the dressings on his face. “It’s what people do.”

“I … thought you weren’t religious.”

“I’m not. Usually.” He takes a few steps back, sits down with his back against a crate, heavily. “You know how it works, right? You meditate on the spirit of a place, or a group, or – something, and hope for direction. When I was a kid I used to pray to our family spirits all the time. The spirit of Cipritine, too.” He draws a knee up to his chest. “I don’t know if my team was important enough to have had a spirit. But I’ve been praying to it anyway.”

Shepard sits down next to him, silently. Waits for him to go on.

“ _Archangel_.” He says it bitterly. “I had to look that up on the extranet, the first time I heard it. Some kind of human spirit with wings? At first, I thought it was because I’m turian – you know, the bird thing, your people think that’s _so_ funny. Then, I read a little more. They’re protectors, they lead armies. I was sort of flattered. Mostly embarrassed, though.” He lets his hand fall back to his side. “It wasn’t me. Not really. Archangel was all of us, as a whole. I might have led my team, but none of what we did would have happened without them pushing me forwards. So I figure –” His voice cracks. “I might as well go on praying.”

“Garrus.” She waits for him to look at her. “It _wasn’t your fault_.”

He nods, slowly. “Someday, I might believe that.”

Impulsively, she puts an arm around him. Turians run hotter than humans do; he feels fever-warm. After a second, Garrus does the same, his weight comforting against her shoulders. They sit like that in the dimness of the main battery for what feels like a long time. Her headache starts to ebb.

Eventually he says, raspily, “It’s so much easier to see the world in black and white. Grey…? I don’t know what to do with grey.”

Shepard says, quietly, “Yeah. Me neither.”

He leans against her a little more. Shepard is thirty, or maybe thirty-two, and Garrus is only – what, twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? Doesn’t matter. Shepard figures they don’t need to be old to be old soldiers. Between the two of them, they’ve lived more than a lot of people do in a lifetime. Garrus looks as exhausted as she feels.

It occurs to her that she really wants to do is rest her head against his shoulder and close her eyes. The rhythm of his breathing would help her sleep. Maybe this time she wouldn’t dream.

She doesn’t do it, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wish there was more information abt turian religion than whats in the codex! it has this shinto/animism vibe that goes rly well w the general turians = ancient romans thing


	12. iii.iii

**_normandy_ sr-2 main battery**

That’s how some things sort themselves out. Messily. There’s no time to dwell on it. There’s always more to do. Reports to write, decisions to authorize, equipment to maintain, a suicide mission to plan. Sometimes Shepard thinks she’s most content when she’s too busy to do anything but work; too much time to think is dangerous. Her past will always be clawing at her, threatening to pull her down into the dark, but if they’re going to make it back from the Omega-4 Relay alive, none of them will be able to afford any distractions. Including her. She will have to keep her head above the water for as long as her crew needs her to.

So in the rare moments when she really, genuinely doesn’t have anything to do except sit around navel-gazing, she distracts herself by – what else? Going down to the main battery and distracting Garrus, on the pretext of needing updates on the status of the guns. Not that she ever understands what he’s talking about when he starts explaining firing algorithms. But it’s enough just to sit, reminisce about the old days, listen to his voice.

She _really_ likes his voice.

“So,” she asks him now, working her bad shoulder back and forth, “how _do_ turian ships prepare for high risk missions?”

“With violence, usually.” Garrus clasps his hands behind his back, a stance she was pretty sure he’d picked up from her. “Turian ships have more operational discipline than your Alliance, but fewer personal restrictions. Our commanders run us tight, and they know we need to blow off steam.”

Shepard blinks.

“Turian ships have training rooms for exercise, combat sims, even full contact sparring. Whatever lets people work off stress.”

 _Get your mind out of the gutter._ “You mean turian ships have crewmen fighting each other before a mission?”

He shrugs. “It’s supervised, of course. Nobody’s going to risk an injury that might endanger the mission. And it’s a good way to settle grudges amicably. I remember, right before one mission … we were about to hit a batarian pirate ship. Very risky. This recon scout and I had been at each other’s throats. Nerves, mostly. She suggested we settle it in the ring.”

Shepard raises an eyebrow. She’s sparred with Garrus enough times to know that even though he’s deadliest at long-range, he’s formidable close up too. “I assume you took her down gently?”

“Actually, she and I were the top ranked hand-to-hand specialists on the ship. I had reach, but she had flexibility.” He shakes his head. “It was brutal. After nine rounds, the judge called it a draw. There were a lot of unhappy betters in the training room. We, ah …” He fidgets. “…ended up holding a tie-breaker in her quarters. I had reach, but she had flexibility. More than one way to work off stress, I guess.”

Shepard laughs. Is he – yes, he’s actually blushing, the thin hide of his throat taking on a bluish tinge. She hasn’t seen that since she’d told him exactly what Kelly Chambers had said about him when he’d first joined the ship. Garrus _still_ avoided the main deck for fear of accidentally running into her.

The tactician in Shepard hasn’t failed to notice that he’s given her one _hell_ of an opening.

She watches him now, as he busies himself at the keyboard. His legs are _ridiculously_ long. And his clawed hands are so big, but they move with such delicate precision. She wants – well. She wants him. It’s on her mind often, these days.

 _Don’t be stupid,_ she tells herself, as she always does. _He’s your friend. He’s not interested. He’s not even human._

But there’s a traitorous little voice in the back of her mind that replies: _Does it matter? You barely count as human anymore, these days._

Fuck it. It’s worth asking, at least. She’ll go crazy if she doesn’t. If he says no, they’re good enough friends that they’d probably be able to laugh off any awkwardness. And if he says yes…

Shepard brushes her hair back from her face. She stands up, takes a few steps closer, and says—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> annnd i think ill just end it there, lol. we all know what comes next, right?

**Author's Note:**

> title is from between the breaths by mitski/xiu xiu.
> 
> i saw this youtube video (watch ? v = 2whpo6JZWRc) and apparently there's a whole separate ending to garrus' loyalty mission that's exclusive to the french version of ME2 :( it made me frustrated all over again that there's basically no character development in the usual renegade ending to the mission, even though not letting garrus kill sidonis always seemed really hypocritical to me. so, i started writing this. i love writing renegon shep & i think the platonic/mentor-y aspects of her relationship w garrus are just as interesting as the sexual/romantic aspects!


End file.
